A twice-weekly syndicated newspaper column on California public affairs.

Monday, May 21, 2018

ANOTHER SILLY, HOPELESS PLAN TO SPLIT CALIFORNIA

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 2018 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS“ANOTHER SILLY, HOPELESS PLAN TO
SPLIT CALIFORNIA”

It’s
silly season again in California. For the seventh time in the last 30 years or
so, activists are suggesting the state needs to be split. But this effort has
gotten enough financial backing to make the November general election ballot.

While
this year’s effort seems fatuous, some past attempts to tear California into
pieces actually made a little sense. That’s especially been true of the
so-called state of Jefferson, which would combine most of rural Northern
California with a slice of southern Oregon and hope to create something new.

That
notion first appeared in the early 1940s, as rural residents felt trampled in
state politics by the far more populous regions surrounding Los Angeles, San
Francisco and San Diego. Their gripes have had more merit ever since the U.S.
Supreme Court’s landmark one-person, one-vote decision destroyed the North
state’s former dominance in the state Senate, where representation long was
based on geography and not population.

Now,
Jefferson adherents say they have so few representatives in Sacramento they
might as well have none and that their interests are constantly overlooked.

But
Jefferson advocates have yet to prove their putative state could be
economically viable, nor have they figured a way around the Constitutional
requirement that – failing a successful state initiative – the entire state
Legislature – and Oregon’s, too – would have to agree to their forming the
first rump state since the Civil War era.

Chances
are, Jefferson would end up with two Republicans in the U.S. Senate, making
odds very slim for the Democrat-controlled Legislature ever to agree to a
divorce.

But
the newest state-splitting idea isn’t even Jefferson. It’s far more blatantly
political, with convoluted new boundaries separating the most populous and
solidly Democratic coastal areas, plus most of the Bay area and a region
stretching east to Sacramento, from much of rural California, the Central
Valley and Orange and San Diego counties, all places were Republicans fare
better than along the coast.

Unlike
Jefferson, the new three-state advocates – who number no elected officials
among their leaders – actually issued a “Declaration of Independence,”
containing some language found in the original declaration of 1776.

But
it inserts some new passages: “The history of the present governor and
government of California is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all
having in direct object the establishment of a tyranny of the counties of New
California and the state of California.” It lists as grievances “years of over
taxation, regulation and mono party politics.”

In
short, these folks would like to take most of the land area of this state and
create a place with few regulations, very low taxes and Republican rule.

The
proposed boundaries somewhat resemble those of a 2011 proposal from
then-Riverside County Supervisor Jeff Stone, now a Republican state senator,
who complained at the time that “We have a state Legislature that has gone
wild…There is only one solution: a serious secession from the liberal arm of
the state of California.”

Stone’s
idea didn’t get far when he proposed it, even if his planned boundaries weren’t
quite as twisty as what the new initiative proposes.

Both
notions represent the current political split in California, which is less
dominated by differences between north and south than by contrasts between the
state’s inland and coastal counties.

The
new measure is far less complex than a six-state idea pushed a couple of years
ago by venture capitalist Tim Draper, who essentially wanted to put six more
Democrats and four new Republicans into the U.S. Senate. Draper tried to
qualify a ballot initiative jump-starting his idea, but it never gained
traction. Draper is also behind the new three-state plan, which would likely
put four Democrats and two Republicans into the Senate.

The
bottom line on these ideas, and the other 27 that have arisen over the last 70
years, is that so long as the U.S. Constitution gives Congress veto power over
any such notion, none is likely to go anywhere, no matter how Californians
vote. For tripling California’s numbers in the Senate would dilute the clout of
every other state.

Which
makes it little more than harmless fun to consider these things, while serious
thinkers instead try to figure ways of making the current state work better
within its existing boundaries.

-30-

Email
Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough,
The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch
It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias
columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

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About Me

Thomas Elias writes the syndicated California Focus column, appearing twice weekly in 88 newspapers around California, with circulation over 2.2 million.
He has won numerous awards from organizations like the National Headliners Club, the California Newspaper Publishers Association, the Los Angeles Press Club, and the California Taxpayers Association. He has been nominated three times for the Pulitzer Prize in distinguished commentary.
Elias is the author of two books, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government's Campaign to Squelch It" (now in its third edition; also published in Japanese and recently optioned for a television movie) and "The Simpson Trial in Black and White," co-authored with the late Dennis Schatzman.